1

Por eso resulta rídicula la pretensión de ciertos propietarios, que piden asus arquitectos la utilización de elementos que han visto en tal o cual lado. . .nuestro deber es crear una arquitectura nacional, propia de nuestro régimenclimatológico y de las modalidades de nuestros espíritus.1

Mexican architects, urban planners and politicians as well as their clients and

constituents have sought for decades to create an architecture which is authentic to national

conditions and to varying definitions of the national spirit. At few times in modern Mexican

history was the expression of Mexicanidad through architecture more diverse as in the

period immediately following the upheaval of the Mexican Revolution. The period of

reconstruction from 1920 to 1930 witnessed the early political consolidation of the Mexican

Revolution as well as the search for means of expressing the new sense of nationality

emerging from it of expression. Architects experimented throughout this period, employing

often contradictory methodologies, on occasion in the same building. Their work reveals the

existence of many Mexicos: the Mexico that built in the neo-colonial and California-colonial

styles; the Mexico which sought to recapture its indigenous culture of the pre-conquest era,

and the modernist, idealist Mexico, which stripped itself of past ornament and beliefs,

embracing a new faith in progress and technology in order to design a better nation through

functionalist architecture.

The Revolution of 1910 provided a radical severance from the prior dominance of

European styles. Works such as Silvio Contri’s Italian Renaissance Palacio de

Comunicaciones, Adamo Boari’s pseudo-Gothic Palacio de Correos and residences built in

Tudor, Victorian-Romanesque and Italian Baroque styles were perceived by many as

grandiose representations of all that was corrupt in the Díaz regime; these were “inherited

1Excélsior, January 25, 1925.

2

architectural forms which had little or no meaning in this new era.”2 As the Revolution

expanded beyond the overthrow of Díaz and the affirmation of principles of no re-election to

include goals of social justice and a restructuring of Mexican society and economy along

more egalitarian lines, the search for a national architectural expression began. This new

architecture would be authentic to the spirit of the Revolution and the society which created

it --the architectural equivalent of “the songs and novels of the Revolution, the serapes and

ceramics of Tlalquepaque.”3

Those who sought to “redesign” Mexico in this period had many options. Although

the faculty at the Academy of San Carlos continued to train architects in the mannerist

style, material on the latest architectural innovations in the United States and Europe was

widely available to the students, as its library subscribed to the latest journals providing

information on Art Decó, the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, Wright, among others. Several

distinct paths were taken from 1920 to 1930, among them the neo-colonial, art deco,

functionalist, and California-colonial. This pluralism in architectural expression is not a

unique phenomenon. As architectural historian Spiro Kostof determined, “All periods of

architectural history have been pluralist.”4 Thus cases in Mexico City’s architectural

history in which Louis XV works are made at the same time as nationalist structures are

not odd.5 Equally significant is the timing of the use of these styles, and the information

which timing provides about various interpretations of the Revolution and the sense of

national identity emerging from it as the governments consolidated power. The nation

2Israel Katzman, La Arquitectura Contemporanea Mexicana, Precedentes y Desarrollo,

(México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1963), 77.

3Katzman, 81.

4Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture, Settings and Rituals, rev. by Greg Castillo, (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1995), 758.

5Many architects tried to remain as flexible as possible, designing to suit a variety of tastesso as to secure as much work as possible, particularly in periods of economic difficulty. Miguel de laTorre’s work contains ample examples of this strategy. In 1921 he designed commercial buildingswith two facades for clients to choose, one French, and another neo-colonial.

3

which emerged from the turmoil of prolonged civil war looked for an architecture which

drew on the nation’s heritage, namely its colonial experience and its pre-conquest history.

This led to the use of indigenous elements in architecture, and to new interpretations of the

colonial styles and its use of regional materials, including tezontle, azulejos and chiluca.6

These early efforts were the first expression of nationalism derived from the Revolution, as

architect Israel Katzman stated, “in architecture, nationalism existed primarily in the

adaptation of ornaments and general forms corresponding to the pre-hispanic and neo-

hispanic constructions” and as combinations of the two.7 Initially, then, the Revolution

provided the nation searching for its identity with the opportunity to consider its past.

Beginning in the mid 1920s, following the revolt against European academism by

painters including Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, changes in technology, new

building materials including structural iron and steel and reinforced concrete, allows for

innovation in design; moreover, an awakening sense of social justice and belief that the neo-

colonial did not adequately convey the essence of modern Mexico, combined to lead a

significant number of architects to reject the neo-colonial style as a means of expressing the

new nationalism. Their perception of the Revolution as an access to modernity led them to

embrace functionalism.

Underlying the employment of these diverse styles was the notion that cultural and

artistic independence from past European dominance was indispensable as a means of

achieving national unity. Somehow native expression would be discovered and cultivated,

and this essence would serve to unify the devastated nation. In the initial rejection of

Porfirian styles, this dominance appeared to be diminished. But a serious question

remained: given its past invasions and cultural penetrations what was authentically

Mexican? In the course of the 1920s, architects, engineers, government officials, and others

6Raquel Tibol, Historia General del Arte Mexicana,VI, Epoca Moderna y Contemporanea,

(México, D.F.: Editorial Hermes, 1981), 397.

7Israel Katzman, La Arquitectura Contemporanea Mexicana, Precedentes y Desarrollo,(México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1963), 77.

4

would attempt to answer that question, thus employing a variety of styles which they

believed would represent, and further the new national identity.

Destruction, and Initial Recovery

According to Alfonso Vásquez Mellado, "The Revolution, with Madero, looked for the

greatness of the country. '“the Brawl' -- the Revolution -- smashed it into pieces.”8 As

former President Emilio Portes Gil later recalled, speaking “from the serenity of my seventy

years, without passion and attached to historical truth in all its purity,” the causes of the

Revolution originated in

the lack of liberty and the violation of human rights, the wickedplundering of the campesinos' lands, the disregard of the rights of workers,the violation of the public vote, the open and unlimited protection of foreigninterests and the supremacy of a privileged class of rich people (instrumentsof imperialist capitalism) over 12 million human beings, provoked the violentoutbreak of the people, . . .which began the armed movement of 1910 andserved as inspiration for the multitudes to take up arms and break theoppressive regime. . .9

Certainly the capital showed little signs of revolutionary greatness from 1911 to

1920. These were the times of “institutionalized disorder” and lost security, of the Decena

Trágica, the crimes of the Huerta government and the coining of a new verb “carrancear”

which reflected the propensity of certain revolutionary soldiers, followers of the First Chief,

to rob and steal.10 Victorious generals and their supporters occupied houses of Díaz

supporters; some individuals acquired automobiles, horses, and household furnishings

under a variety of means, while others destroyed or hid valuables.11 Given such chaotic

8Alfonso Vásquez Mellado, La Ciudad de los Palacios, Imágenes de Cinco Siglos, (México,

D.F.: Diana, 1988), 289.

9Emilio Portes Gil, “Sentido y Destino de la Revolución Mexicana” in México, Cincuenta Añosde Revolución, vol. III, La Política, (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1961), 479.

10Vásquez Mellado, 290; Arturo Sotomayor, “México, Donde Nací,. . . . “ Biografía de unaCiudad, (México, D.F.: Libreria de Manuel Porrua, S.A., 1968), 296.

11Carlos Obregón Santacilia noted that many valuables surfaced thirty years later, in thehomes of the newly rich. See his Cinquenta Años de Arquitectura Mexicana (1900-1950), (México,D.F.: Editorial Patria, 1952), 34. Architect Juan O'Gorman noted that his family was able to acquirean "enormous house" on calle Santísimo with very little money. Interview with Olga Sáenz, 1970, in

5

conditions, this was not the time for construction or architectural innovation. Development

of State building projects halted for much of this period.12 Monumental structures begun by

Porfirio Díaz, notably the Palacio Legislativo and the Teatro Nacional remained incomplete

rusting shells, ironic signs of the former power and prestige of the Díaz dictatorship.

Architect Juan Segura, who completed his studies in 1921, recalled the disorder of this

period and its effect on his classmates who had hoped to be in professional practice: “When

we left the school in that time, it was an awful thing because we finished in 1921 and in

Mexico there wasn't a cent, there was no capital, there were no banks . . . it is the epoch of

the Revolution, a very interesting time; although you wanted to build, there was no money .

. . construction in Mexico was suspended.”13

The amount of destruction inflicted during the prolonged civil war also precluded

architectural innovation and construction. The civil war damaged rail lines, the pride of

Limantour and Díaz, ruined bridges and telegraph lines, destroyed valuable mines and

drastically decreased agricultural production and income. Very little could be built. It

became increasingly difficult to get the necessary steel from the Fundidora de Fierro y Acero

de Monterrey or cement from the Cruz Azul plant in Jasso, Hidalgo to Mexico City.

Cementos Hidalgo halted operations for the entire decade; Cruz Azul sustained such losses

that it passed into receivership and Cemento Tolteca continued by operating under a heavy

debt. And as Frank Brandenberg noted, while prices rose dramatically, the war made debt

collection difficult or impossible.14

Ida Rodríguez Prampolini, Olga Sáenz and Elizabeth Fuentes Rojas, eds, La Palabra de JuanO'Gorman, Selección de textos, (México, D.F.: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, 1983),10.

12Pedro Rojas Rodríguez, The Art and Architecture of Mexico: From 10,000 B.C. to thePresent Day, (Feltham, Middlesex: Hamlyn, 1968), 41.

13Interview with Segura, Lilia Gómez and Miguel Angel Quevedo, Testimonios Vivos, 20Arquitectos, Cuadernos de Arquitectura y Conservación del Patrimonio Artistico, series:Documentos, número 15-16, (México, D.F.: Secretaria de Educación Pública, Instituto Nacional deBellas Artes, 1981),18. Segura was in better circumstances himself, as his relatives had founded theFundación Mier y Pasado, and he was able to build several projects for the Fundación.

14Frank Brandenberg, The Making of Modern Mexico, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964),282.

6

Yet somehow the city was not entirely a scene of devastation and despair, according

to Carlos Obregón Santacilia, who had been a student at the Academy of San Carlos in 1916.

He recalled,

At the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, nationalism wastransformed into the dominant tendency. . . aware that besides political andeconomic independence, cultural and artistic independence wereindispensable as the only way to achieve national unity, that is to say, theidentification of the citizen with his country and its traditions.15

The first step toward achieving this identification was the rejection of the exotic

eclecticism so prevalent under the regime of Porfirio Díaz. Amidst the disorder of the

Revolution, architects began to look forward. At conferences at the Universidad Popular

Mexicana in 1913 and 1914 architect Jesús T. Acevedo discussed the possibility of a return

to colonial architecture as the legitimate expression of national identity. Describing with

great admiration the Sagrario, La Enseñanza, Santo Domingo, and the beauty of viceregal

combinations of stonework and tezontle, Acevedo found

passing through the streets of the city of my birth, in the silence of thenights, when one better perceives the silhouettes of the constructions, I haveasked myself if our colonial style, made of remnants, could constitute in itsturn an exemplar style. Exchanging ideas with my friends, we have arrivedslowly to understand that these are the roots of the Mexican tree in whosecultivation we should take great pains. The tradition of so much excellencehad been sleeping in the conscience of all, but it is not dead.16

To Acevedo, architects who supported the Revolution now were compelled to awaken

that tradition and infuse it with the vigor of the Revolution. In the same year, Federico

Mariscal also promoted the neo-colonial style as a means of expressing the revolutionary

nation in his summary of the 1913-1914 conferences contained in La Patria y la

Arquitectura Nacional. Mariscal, who with Acevedo and other members of the Ateneo de la

Juventud determined national culture to be the sum of the historical actions of Mexican

society, defined contemporary Mexican citizens as “the result of a moral and intellectual mix

15Graciela de Garay Arellano, La Obra de Carlos Obregón Santacilia, Arquitecto, (México,D.F.: Secretaria de Educación Pública, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1982), 19.

16As quoted in Katzman, 80-81.

7

of the Spanish race and the aboriginal races.”17 The architecture which would represent

them authentically had to be a composition of the two races: the style would be that which

had evolved from native materials and styles during the three centuries of colonial rule.

This was the authentic style of Mexico -- a style whose evolution had been long delayed due

to the importation of exotic influences during the mid- and late-nineteenth century. With

Díaz’ overthrow, Mexico now possessed the opportunity to resume that evolution. Further,

Venustiano Carranza provided the backing of the State for this interpretation of Mexican

nationalism, as he decreed tax exemptions for those who built homes in this style.

As the decade closed, “the first stage of the post-revolutionary state unfolded in a

climate of redemptive nationalism.”18 While this nationalist resurgence involved a violent

reaction against the dictatorship, it also had “a profoundly creative and positive aspect -- the

affirmation of “Mexicanism and the rebirth of the national spirit in all its aspects” as the

Sociedad de Arquitectos Mexicanos later explained.19 Contemporaries noted a sense of

nation and destiny in the air which had not been felt in Mexico since 1857. Verna Carleton

Millan, a new resident of the city, saw artists asserting their independence from European

art in their beautiful renditions of native glory, which evolved into a thematic approach

later called pictoral realism. Signs of change were evident throughout the city, as

upon the walls of the old buildings of Mexico City, posters thatproclaimed the virtues of the new art, new poetry and everything else thatwas new. Chaotic days were these, when Mexico paused a brief spell, in themidst of civil warfare, to take cognizance of its new culture, which seemed tohave awakened overnight, though its roots penetrated back to the Pre-Conquest. . . . 20

17Federico Mariscal, La Patria y la Arquitectura Nacional: Resumenes de las Conferencias

dadas en la Casa de la Universidad Popular Mexicana del 21 de Octubre de 1913 al 29 de Julio de1914, (México, D.F., 1915), 14.

18Ramón Vargas Salguero and Rafael López Rangel, “The Current Crisis in Latin AmericanArchitecture,” in Roberto Segre and Fernando Kusnetzoff, eds., Latin America in Its Architecture,trans. Edith Grossman, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1975), 132.

19Sociedad de Arquitectos Mexicanos, 4000 (Cuatro Mil) Años de Arquitectura Mexicana,(México, D.F.: Libreros Mexicanos Unidos, 1956), 134.

20 Verna Carleton Millan, Mexico Reborn, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1939), p. 4-5

8

Obregón Santacilia also felt a sense of mission emanating from the Revolution. He

witnessed the rejection of the nation's past and resolved to understand the new social

environment for which he would work to resolve architectural problems “without prejudice

of forms and styles,”21 particularly those so closely associated with the Díaz regime. Like

Acevedo and Mariscal, Obregón Santacilia believed the neo-colonial style appeared to be the

best choice to express national identity. This style, with various permutations, had

persisted for centuries because it continued to answer the esthetic needs of a segment of the

capital's population. According to architectural historian Spiro Kostof, in general the built

domain can “carry a sense of ourselves, what we aspire to be and should therefore be able to

uplift our spirits.”22 Within that domain, viceregal architecture carried the message of

identity and historical destiny. It was a familiar convention to most Mexicans; it was also

an intelligible symbol of Spanish identity those who welcomed such association. To

construct in the neocolonial style signified for the first governments following the

Revolution’s armed phase the recuperation of artistic essences native to Mexico, particularly

those of New Spain, and initiated with them the process of affirmation of nationality as a

force capable of sustaining the affirmation of Mexico's value and the beginning of an

architecture derived from local traditions.23

Moreover, the neocolonial style served as aesthetic expression of an emerging

nationalism which was “struggling to define itself,”24 as well as a means of reclaiming the

nation from past European dominance. To Obregón Santacilia, the rejection of Porfirian

architectural styles implied in the use of the neocolonial came to represent “the first

21Carlos Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años de Arquitectura Mexicana, 1900-1950,

(México, D.F.: Editorial Patria, 1952), 34.

22 Kostof, A History of Architecture, 623.

23Enrique X .De Anda Alanís, Evolución de la Arquitectura en México: Epocas Prehispanica,Virreinal, Moderna y Contemporanea, (México, D.F.: Panorama Editorial, 1987), 166.

24Peter Ward, Mexico City, The Production and Reproduction of an Urban Environment,(London: Belhaven Press, 1990), 199.

9

effective conquest of the Revolution.”25 Architects and private and public sector clients

looked to this style as a way to express legitimacy for a government whose Constitution

provided a sound blueprint for action, but whose civil institutions were still in infancy and

whose authority was still questioned by rival claims to power. In the use of these symbols,

Mexico once again turned to Europe; the irony of expressing a nation's freedom from recent

French aesthetic dominance by resurrecting the colonial style apparently remained

unacknowledged by most contemporaries.26 Instead, as Mexican architects and contractors

had “an acute capacity to interpret imported styles in their own manner,” they had faith in

the belief that “all that which is built loses its seal of exact European reproduction, even

though the intent was that.”27 The neocolonial style thus could be a true expression of

Mexicanidad.

Obregón and the Neo-colonial

Carlos Obregón Santacilia observed

Passing the first years of the Revolution, of tragic struggles, disorder,and misfortunes the governments emanating from it began to establishthemselves and could think of constructive things. Architecture, likealways, was intimately linked with power and politics, oscillating, almostdisappearing in the period of agitation, or flowering well in those of calm.28

The Obregón government “emanating from the Revolution,” or “Revolution-made

government”29 created the first signs of calm and thus provided the climate for a new

25Address of Carlos Obregón Santacilia, “La Revolución Mexicana y la Arquitectura,” at the

conference at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, series: "La Revolución Mexicana y las Artes," Mexico City,October 4, 1960, [mimeo, 5-6]

26On this issue architect Eduardo Macedo y Arbeu expressed a commonly held view that “itis better to copy the reality than to copy the plans of the Medallas de Paris,” but advised architects toconsider the origins of this style, as it too was an import, a collection of classical and Moorishelements. Katzman, 79.

27Carlos Obregón Santacilia, México como Eje de las Antiguas Arquitecturas de América,(México, D.F.: INBA, 1954), 76.

28Carlos Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años, 42.

29These two terms, widely used by Obregón’s cabinet, served to confer additional legitimacyupon that government, as it claimed direct descent from the heroism of the Revolution. See

10

architectural expression to develop. Obregón wanted, as he stated shortly after his election,

“to show the world either that we are capable of reconstructing the country we have half-

destroyed, to guide it into new paths, or that we are only able to destroy and not to

reconstruct the country of the future.”30 Yet his resources were limited. He would not be

able to implement many of the reforms expressed in the Constitution of 1917, yet somehow

he had to convince the nation that a revolution in their benefit had occurred, and that one

day its promises would be sustained. Until concrete programs could be implemented,

“inculcating a new nationalism and a sense of pride in the Revolution would have to

substitute for action.”31 And Obregón could inculcate this new nationalism in part via the

employment of nationalist messages in State architecture.

The first building projects did not focus on the materialization of the revolutionary

rhetoric of social justice, but of the reconstruction of legitimate government itself, and on its

representation in the built environment. In 1922, Secretary of Foreign Relations Alberto J.

Pani asked Carlos Obregón Santacilia to develop a plan for the renovation and expansion of

his ministry’s building.32 This action was a recognition of the growing prominence of this

ministry, as well as Mexico's emergence from revolutionary conflict and the importance of

international ties to the nation’s recovery. Pani sought to enlarge and remodel the existing

building, originally a residence designed by architect Nicolas Mariscal y Piña and one of the

first in Mexico City to employ reinforced concrete. Obregón Santacilia completed the

remodeling of this Louis XIV structure in the neocolonial style in November 1924. He also

statements by Alberto Pani, who served as Secretary of Foreign Relations and as Secretary of theTreasury in the Obregón government, in his La Historia Agredida, Polvareda que Alzó un Discursoentre el Monumento del General Obregón, (México, D.F.: Editorial Polis, 1950), 40.

30Linda B. Hall, Alvaro Obregón: Power and Revolution in Mexico, 1911-1920, (CollegeStation: Texas A & M University Press, 1981) 247.

31Jonathan Kandell, La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City, (New York: Random House,1988), 443.

32Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años, 23. In this project Obregón Santacilia and AlbertoPani established a working relationship which continued until 1934, producing several significantprojects, among them the Monument to Obregón and the Hotel Reforma.

11

began the enlargement of the Palacio Nacional, former residence of the viceroys and “the

most important building in the capital for its location,” as it occupied the entire eastern

block of the Plaza de la Constitución.33 Along with the construction of the neo-colonial

Hotel Majestic, the two men took the first steps towards their goal of beautifying the

appearance of the Plaza de la Constitución. Other State neo-colonial building projects

included the renovation of the Cámara de Senadores de la República at Paseo de la Reforma

8, modernization of the Rastro de la Ciudad de México (1923), and construction of the

Biblioteca Cervantes (1923), the Fray Bartolome de las Casas fountain (1923), the Talleres

Tostado (1922), designed by Federico Mariscal.

Private sector residential and commercial construction increased at a moderate pace

during the Obregón administration. In these areas contractors most frequently chose the

neo-colonial style, building these works “based on their cultural development, idiosyncrasy

and political and social inclinations.”34 In response to growing middle class demand for

apartments, Angel Torres Torija designed the Departamentos Gaona on Calle Bucareli

(1922), Manuel Ortiz Monasterio offered his building at Vizcaínas 12, and Salvador Vertiz

Hornedo built apartments at Puente de Alvarado 66.

The neo-colonial style also enjoyed considerable popularity in residential

construction, with a boom in such building occurring between 1923 and 1926. Notable

examples include the residence on the corner of Insurgentes and Coahuila by engineers

Francisco Martínez Negrete and Agustín de la Barra, and homes at Génova 33, by Carlos

Greenham, Varsovia and Londres, by José Villagrán García and José Espinosa, at San

Miguel 81 and 83 by Carlos Obregón Santacilia and José Villagrán García, and at

Insurgentes and Sonora, by Rodolfo Weber. In this manner these developments in the

33Alberto Pani, Apuntes Autobiográficos. vol. II, 2d ed., (México, D.F. Libreria de Manuel

Porrua, 1950), 60-61.

34Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años, 51.

12

private sector mirrored governmental preferences for the neo-colonial, thus serving to

reaffirm this official expression of Mexican nationalism via a return to the viceregal era.

Building for “La Raza Cósmica”

The neocolonial style also gained acceptance through the resolute support of José

Vasconcelos, whose actions “began the decolonization of Mexico” in this epoch of “the

denunciation of the European and the exaltation of the originality of our culture.”35 As

Secretary of Public Education, he headed one of the strongest institutions in a government

just beginning to consolidate its power. In this official capacity he actively promoted the

neocolonial style to be a reflection of the true Mexicanidad.

As Octavio Paz hypothesized, “If the revolution was a search and an immersion of

ourselves in our own origins and being, no one embodied this fertile, desperate search better

than José Vasconcelos, the founder of modern education in Mexico.” 36 Vasconcelos sought a

new education founded on “our blood, our language, our people.”37 Following the violent

upheaval of the Revolution, an intensified search for a national identity led to the

idealization of indigenous peoples and a reinterpretation of the conquest and the society

emerging from it, illustrated in the murals of José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and

David Siqueiros. In his sponsorship of this artistic activity, Vasconcelos recognized the

significance of indigenous peoples in the creation of a uniquely Mexican identity. He

expressed this insight in the concept of a "cosmic race" - La Raza Cósmica - which was

forming in Mexico. This new race was of Indian blood and soul, with Spanish language and

civilization; a unique race with a destiny of its own. According to Paz,

the philosophy of the “cosmic race” (that is, of the new American manwho would resolve all racial conflicts and the great opposition between East

35Garay Arellano, 32.

36Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, trans. Lysander Kemp, (New York: Grove Press,1972), 152.

37Ibid.

13

and West) was the natural and ultimate consequence of Spanishuniversality. The idea expounded by Vasconcelos had little or no relation tothe caste-conscious traditionalism of the Mexican conservatives: he saw ourcontinent, as did the founders of America, as futurity and newness. 'SpanishAmerica is magnificently new, not only as a geographical region but also as arealm for the spirit.' His traditionalism did not look to the past for support:it was to be justified in and by the future.38

Vasconcelos was not the only one to express sentiments on racial fusion. Fellow

Atenista Federico Mariscal had done so in 1914, as had priest José Cantú Cosso, who

affirmed the use of neo-colonial architecture in Mexico as a means of achieving “a

reconciliation of all of us who form the great Hispanic-American race.”39 In drawing on

these sentiments Vasconcelos was able to take them one step further, as he expressed the

need for the nation to gain its cultural independence -- to reclaim the nation from French

cultural dominance and to cease its emulation of foreign nations. At that point the nation

would achieve its spiritual emancipation, a corollary of political emancipation.40 The

fusion of previously disparate races would provide a means of achieving national identity,

incorporating all Mexicans into this new sense of nationality economically as well as

spiritually.41 With this powerful concept of the cosmic race, Vasconcelos “gave many young

intellectuals. . . a sense of confidence by affirming the mixed blood of Latin America as the

stock of a great future race.” And as Minister of Public Education, “nurtured by the

idealism of the Ateneo de la Juventud, he set a nation, numb from a decade of unrestricted

violence,” to the task of educating the raza cósmica.42

38Octavio Paz, The labyrinth of Solitude, trans. Lysander Kemp, (New York: Grove Press

1961), 154

39As cited by Katzman, 81.

40José Vasconcelos, La Raza Cósmica, Misión de la Raza Iberoamericana, (México, D.F.:Colección Austral, Espasa-Calpe Mexicana, S.A., 1948), 136.

41 Emilio Uribe Romo, "México y las implicaciones demográficas de la postguerra,' RevistaMexicana de Sociología, 9 (sept/dec 1947), 340.

42Howard T. Young, introduction to José Vasconcelos, A Mexican Ulysses, AnAutobiography, trans. by W. Rex Crawford, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963), 9.

14

Vasconcelos had considerable support in this venture. President Obregón provided

his department with record-level budgets; many talented young architects who could give

physical form to his dream were employed in government departments such as the

Departamento de Construcción de Escuelas de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, including

José Villagrán García, Manuel Ortiz Monasterio, Eduardo Macedo y Arbeu, José Villagrán

García, Vicente Mendiola, Fernando Dávila and Carlos Obregón Santacilia. For its

ambitious school construction program, the Obregón government needed an architectural

style which would respond to the new necessities of the national culture. To Vasconcelos,

in determining which style to employ, “we should find inspiration in our glorious past.”43

Within that “glorious past” lay several options, among them the pre-hispanic, classical and

colonial. His identification of the new Hispanic-American spirit led Vasconcelos to promote

the neocolonial and pre-hispanic styles, derived from each of the historical components of

the cosmic race. As architect Juan O'Gorman recalled the activities

in the period of Vasconcelos, ornamental buildings were made, colonialstyle and which in reality were a species of prolonging of the architecturalstyles of the Colony. It was a more or less crude prolongation but, finally, itwas what Vasconcelos wanted. . . he had the idea that schools, the buildingsthemselves, were an education for the students and teachers and certainlythe architects made them in accord with what was then considered to be thenational style.44

One of Vasconcelos’ most enduring contributions to Mexican architecture was his

insistence that buildings themselves could convey meaning, and that it was imperative for

the revolutionary governments to construct buildings which accurately conveyed the desired

message. In subjecting the Mexican capital strictly to tradition, Vasconcelos ran the risk,

according to architect Manuel M. Ituarte, “of converting architecture into archaeology.”45

But to a Vasconcelista the neo-colonial posed no such danger: instead it signaled the

43Vasconcelos, Mexican Ulysses, 39.

44Interview with Architect Juan O'Gorman, Lilia Gómez and Miguel Angel Quevedo,Testimonios Vivos, 20 Arquitectos, 132

45Ruben Ortiz Torres, "La Arquitectura de la Postmodernidad," México en el Arte, 16(Spring 1987), 35.

15

emergence of a new Mexico, a style “representative of a Mexico which had departed from

barbarism."46 Obregón Santacilia saw no problem either, as he explained “in dealing with

the revival of architectural forms and solutions of other times, we pay attention to what was

archaeology and therefore inapplicable to the architecture that naturally we create for the

new necessities of our time.”47

These neocolonial forms often featured crests in the form of crowns and flowers,

quatrefoil windows and terraced profiles cut into series of ascending and descending

rhythms, formed by combinations alternating with right angles and semi-circumferences.

Generally builders used reinforced concrete or a combination of stone and tezontle; at times

the latter was mandated by government decree. This revival of eighteenth-century style

was a deliberate attempt to employ symbols of the past to confer legitimacy and stability to

the present. As Kostof explained in general terms, “Behind what we call architectural

revivals lies the desire to emulate the architectural mode of another place and time, not

only to show esteem for the older tradition, but also in order to associate ourselves with the

spirit and values that we think were prevalent there and then.”48

And Vasconcelos apparently was in accord, as he stated his objective was “to make

Mexico City the metropolis of the Latin American continent; an Athens, not because of a

ridiculous desire to emulate ancient Athens, but a city renowned for its love of culture, for

its liberality and hospitality toward alien talent.”49 No detail was too insignificant for

Vasconcelos in his effort to achieve a Mexican Renaissance. As he later recalled his

proposals for school architecture,

one of the things I insisted on with the engineers of the Secretariat wasthat they resume the custom of making the entrances of all the buildings we

46Garay Arellano, 26.

47Carlos Obregón Santacilia, "Cuatro Tiempos en la Fisonomía de la Ciudad de México,"Revista de Difusión Cultural 1, (September/October 1957), 7.

48 Kostof, 18.

49Vasconcelos, Mexican Ulysses, 183.

16

put up as generously wide as in the old days when we were a country ofgentlemen. We did not want schools of the Swiss type, like those that JustoSierra hastily threw together, nor schools of the Chicago type, like some fewthat were perpetrated later. 50

From his work with Carlos Tarditi on the pedestal for the Monument to

Cuauhtémoc, Obregón Santacilia became acquainted with Vasconcelos, who asked him to

design the Escuela Benito Juárez, the largest primary school to be built by the Obregón

government. Vasconcelos instructed him to represent the new nationalist tendency of the

Obregón regime therein. The school, located in Colonia Roma on part of the land occupied

by the old Panteón de la Piedad, and surrounded by the newly formed colonias Hipódromo

Condesa, Del Valle, Nápoles, Escandón and Roma, was inaugurated in 1925. In Obregón

Santacilia’s design, one gains a first impression of the facade as a convent from its terraced

profile and tile roofs. A central axis divided the structure into two halves, providing

separate classrooms for boys and girls. In addition, in its use of the central patio and other

characteristics of viceregal construction, the school “reflects plastically the moral concepts

of Vasconcelos.”51 It garnered high praise from contemporaries: “From the foundations to

the roofs . . . .all this enormous construction is of concrete and therefore, it is made for the

centuries, constituting a undying monument for future generations.”52

Acknowledging the need for a trained workforce to participate in Mexican

reconstruction and economic development, in 1922 Obregón created the Escuela Técnica de

Maestros Constructores for the teaching of the professional theory and practice of

construction, and the Escuela Técnica para Maestros, to train industrial education teachers.

In 1923 three schools opened: the Escuela “Gabriela Mistral” for young women, to impart

domestic and commercial education; the Instituto Técnico Industrial, to prepare workers

and subprofessional technicians for industrial work; and the Centro Industrial Nocturno

50Vasconcelos, Mexican Ulysses, 181.

51Garay Arellano, 27.

52"Escuela Benito Juárez," Cemento, 16, (1926), 13.

17

para Obreros, a night school which offered industrial and commercial courses. Each was

constructed in the neo-colonial style, thus carrying the Vasconcelos message of nationalism.

Obregón’s initiatives in technical and primary education received considerable praise, yet

there were drawbacks. The cost of constructing in the neocolonial manner was exceptionally

high: Vasconcelos spent approximately 52 million pesos to build eight schools in this style.53

A resurgence of pre-hispanic Maya, Toltec and Aztec elements appeared in

Obregonista State architecture also. In 1920 Manuel Amabilis built a fountain in the

Glorieta Riviera with serpents at the base reminiscent of those at Chichen Itza, providing

an unusual combination of classic proportions with Mayan glyphs. The new Estadio

Nacional, one of the largest public works of the Obregón administration, with seating for

over 30,000 and thus a grand statement of the communication its nationalist sentiments,

also featured a fusion of apparently disparate architectural styles. At this site, José

Villagrán García “dared to combine the Aztec and the conquerors in rendition to

architectural neoclassicism.”54

In this type of architectural fusion as practiced during the Obregón administration,

little concern was manifest pertaining to the appropriateness of combining symbols of

indigenous peoples with those of their conquerors. These works of fusion imply a smooth

mixing of the races into the modern mestizo, apparent in Vasconcelos’ formulation of the

concept of the cosmic race. The result from this was the addition of the notion of racial

53According to Finance Minister Alberto J. Pani, Mexico's financial problems were quite

grave at this time. In 1923, the nation had a budget deficit of 42 million pesos, necessitating theelimination of 2000 government jobs; a presidential decree mandated 10% salary reductions for allemployees, including the military. Memoria de la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, 1923 and1924. It thus became apparent to Pani and Obregón that the government could not affordVasconcelos' extensive construction campaign.

54Salvador Novo, "Imagenes de México ", Artes de México 58/59, (1964), 7. At theinauguration of this stadium, Obregón, Vasconcelos and other government officials joined 60,000people, "watching games and exercises; they heard a chorus of 12,000 children, which was followed bydancing by 1000 couples in national dress." Noticing an unfinished staircase, Vasconcelos cynicallyremarked to President Obregón, 'Those who follow us will not have the ability even to finish thatstaircase.'"

18

harmony among indigenous peoples and Spaniards to the national identity, a reworking of

the “Black Legend” in consonance with Vasconcelos’ interpretation of the Revolution.

19

The Colonial versus the Neo-Colonial

In this period of experimentation, restoration of order and consolidation of power,

the search for an authentic Mexican style left an indelible imprint on the built environment,

in the form of José Clemente Orozco's and Diego Rivera's murals, hostels for the indigent,

pediatric clinics, serum laboratories, libraries and recreational areas. Some of these were

housed with enthusiastic symbolism in nationalized churches. This activity provides the

observer with an ironic note: while the Obregón and Calles governments and members of

the architectural community pursued the neo-colonial style, authentic colonial structures

were destroyed or altered severely.

Destruction of Church property was not an exclusive action of the Obregón or Calles

administrations. Their activities in assigning new uses to Church property continued a

process begun in the mid-nineteenth century. The political, social, and economic reasons

for this process differed over time, but as art historian Guillermo Tovar de Teresa lamented,

“Destruction has not been the private sport of a single group, but the pastime of almost all

Mexicans.”55 Such destruction was possible, he claimed, “given the attitudes that modern

Mexican society held regarding its past and its future.”56 And it was also possible during

the 1920s given a changing national identity and a government which no longer claimed the

Catholic religion as one of its defining characteristics. This was a society which could build

in a neo-colonial style to represent its sense of nationalism emanating from its Revolution,

but could also demolish authentic colonial structures when their backing symbolism was

incompatible with the Revolution’s aims. Both the Obregón and Calles governments

condoned this activity in their objectives to diminish the power of and assert civil

government supremacy over the Catholic Church. A survey of the destruction of church

55Guillermo Tovar de Teresa, The City of Palaces, Chronicle of a Lost Heritage, (México,

D.F.: Vuelta, 1990), vol. 2, 85.

56Tovar de Teresa, vol. 1, xxi.

20

property provides evidence of the diminished presence of the Church in nationalist

expression.

During the Obregón administration, the Jesús María Convent, at Jesús María,

Soledad, Academia and Corregiadora streets, retained its neoclassic portal, but in the

1920s its great cloister served as a dance hall, then housed the Mundial Cinema.57 In the

late nineteenth century La Encarnación had been reduced to a garbage dump; José

Vasconcelos ordered its restoration as his department's central offices in 1922, then

expanded the structure, and offered its walls to Diego Rivera and other muralists.58 The

destruction of the Dolores Church in the 1920s made way for the Ideal Theater, famous for

the comic performances of the Blanch sisters. 59 Obregón infuriated Catholic public opinion

when he permitted the Casa del Obrero Mundial to reopen, using the Church of Santa

Brígida and the adjacent Colegio Josefino as headquarters. And the Royal Monastery of

Jesus María, at Corregiadora, La Soledad and Estampa de Jesús, saw use as a movie house,

billiards hall, tenement, and held the archives of the Ministry of Defense. Later it housed a

furniture and home appliance store.60

Such practices continued during Plutarco Elías Calles' administration. Unlike his

predecessor, Calles chose to implement the restrictive provisions of the Constitution of 1917

pertaining to religious institutions. In his message to Congress in 1926, Calles said that the

Executive branch, in enforcing the nation's laws, had closed “129 Catholic Schools, 42

churches, 7 convents and 7 centers of religious propaganda.”61 The resulting alteration and

destruction of Church properties left an indelible mark on Mexico City, but also revealed the

emergence of a new secular power. In the assignment of new functions to church properties

57Tovar de Teresa, vol. 1, xiv.

58Tovar de Teresa, vol. 2, 95.

59Tovar de Teresa, vol. 1, xvii.

60Tovar de Teresa, vol. 2, 113.

61"Informe de Gobierno del 1 de septiembre de 1926," Excélsior, September 2, 1926.

21

as well as in their demolition, the government and those acting on its behalf removed

symbols of the Church's past dominance, thus irrevocably altering the city's skyline. Also

apparent in these actions were the changing needs of the government and the population, as

well as a lack of recognition for artistic value and architectural heritage of these structures

now converted to new uses. Throughout Calles remaining years in office, the Cathedral

remained the tallest structure on the city's skyline. Yet new North American-influenced

skyscrapers would soon compete for prominence, signs of the emergence of an equally potent

power and of further revisions in national identity.

A Search for Simplicity and Honesty

As the neo-colonial style was being employed with such enthusiasm, other architects

began to see its limitations in terms of functional and representational ability. The style

possessed some serious drawbacks: as an evocation of the viceregal past, it had no peer, yet

its high cost of construction made its widespread application questionable. In addition, it is

primarily a horizontal style. As urban land prices began to rise, clients asked architects for

solutions which would make greater use of the land. In the background, too, questions

remained. Could the meaning of modern Mexican identity be expressed by looking

backwards? Simultaneous with the government sponsorship of the neo-colonial style, then,

there appeared in the capital a number of transitional works. These structures alluded to a

type of fusion beginning in Mexican architecture, in which structures were less linked to the

traditional forms and interpretations of the neo-colonial, such as crests, terraced profiles,

and the use of stone and tezontle, and more related to the simplicity of the new architecture

beginning to emerge in Europe in the early 1920s. While the neo-colonial the result of a

distinct esthetic preference and a volition to regain an authentic Mexican architecture, the

architecture of this transition was the result of economy as well as self-imposed restrictions

of simplicity and “honesty” drawn from perceived flaws in the neo-colonial style. This is not

to say that these works were functionalist; this style had not yet been transferred to

22

Mexico.62 Instead, these works illustrate the flaws in the prevailing style, and serve to

facilitate subsequent acceptance of the considerably more radical doctrine of functionalism.

Simplicity was an important element in transitional works. In their evaluations of

these works, contemporary journals often commented that the architect had not made

archaeology [a sin!] nor did he pursue sterile extremes. In brief, the ideal work was held to

be “an architecture that would not come to be ‘extravagant’, nor one that would ‘forsake the

past.’”63 The desire for simplification found its first expression in residential construction as

the first neo-colonial homes were completed. Among those structures which emphasized

simplicity were the apartments on Alzate 44 by Guillermo Pallares, (1921); the house at

Reforma 188, by Bernardo Calderón y Caso (1922); Benjamín Orvañanos’ houses on Orizaba

78 and Pimentel 42, (1923); and in designs by Vicente Mendiola and Juan Galindo for the

Colonia Algarín (1925) and the project for a building at the Plaza de la Constitución, by

Alfonso Pallares (1926). To architect Israel Katzman, these structures “give the impression

of Porfirian houses to which someone passed an electric shaver over all their ornaments.”64

Commercial clients also perceived the value in simplification. They asked architects

for structures which would allow greater ventilation and illumination and more flexible use

of interior space. In these new projects for department stores, office buildings and factories,

architects had the opportunity to design in a more simple, streamlines manner, a

development which provided Mexico with an approach to contemporary architecture

through a channel in addition to that of European functionalism. Architects were further

aided by the development and refinement of new construction materials such as structural

iron, steel and reinforced concrete, which allowed them greater options in design.65

62Le Corbusier did not publish his landmark Toward a New Architecture until 1923, while

copies in French were available in Mexico City in 1924, the book was not translated into Spanishuntil 1925, by architect and engineer José L. Cuevas.

63Katzman, 100.

64Katzman, 106.

65 The use of structural iron was not unique to the 1920s; it had been used in numerousstructures built during the later years of the Porfiriato, such as the El Buen Tono factory, the Museo

23

Examples of this construction included the new Palacio de Hierro by Paul Dubois (1921), the

department store El Correo Frances (1926) and the Edificio Cidosa (1924) by Dubois and

Fernando Marcon, and the Edificio Woodrow (1922) by Albert Pepper. Given the simplicity

of the independent structure, the rhythm of large rectangular windows, and the lack of

ornamentation in these buildings, these buildings were among the first contemporary works

in Mexico.

Along with simplicity, the notion of “honesty” in materials and construction was

very important in these transitional works. Architect José de la Lama, who claimed to have

built more than one thousand houses in the capital, summarized this view in his declaration

that “I never imitate material. The characteristics of the materials are not concealed or put

forth as something they are not -- that wood would be wood, that the brick would be brick.”

If brick or stone or wood had to be covered, the cover should function only as a protective

layer, and not “with the pretension of feigning a better material.”66 In sum, nothing should

be hidden, or concealed.

In this transitional period the influence of Art Decó is also apparent. Vicente

Mendiola made a series of models for the trade journal Cemento in 1925. While none of

these structures were executed in the 1920s, Mendiola did provide design elements which

were employed in 1936 by Fernando Puga in his design for the city’s new airport terminal,

and in the Banco Aboumrad in 1937. Javier Státoli used this style in his design of the open

air theater in Colonia Hipódromo (1927), as did José Gómez Echeverría in the Estación del

Ferrocarril Infantil de Chapultepec (1928).

The most significant work of this period of transition was Carlos Obregón

Santacilia’s project for the Edificio de la Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia. As Calles'

de Historia Natural and the Rastro. Its use became more widespread in the 1920s, following thecreation of the Compañia de Aceros de Monterrey in 1917 and the use of structural iron in theHilados y Tejidos La Victoria (1922), the Edificio de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores and in thefactories of San Rafael, La Hormiga, and the Cervecería Modelo.

66As quoted by Katzman, 107.

24

land program slowed and the number of cars, houses and other signs of material wealth

grew blatant, José Villagrán García, then serving as architect for the Secretaría de

Salubridad y Asistencia, sought to “take steps into the morass of disease submerging all but

the very rich.”67 In 1926, at Villagrán García's request, Carlos Obregón Santacilia designed

and began construction of Edificio de la Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia at Paseo de la

Reforma and Lieja. It consisted of three great blocks, with its distribution analogous to the

human form. As Obregón Santacilia described his work, the principal part, or head,

contained the offices of the directors and meetings rooms. The central segment held

laboratories; the sides formed classroom sections which represented “arms extended to carry

those services to the public.”68 This building was not a faithful copy of the neocolonial style

nor a derivation from pre-hispanic tradition. Instead, it featured the application of new

forms to traditional materials. The structure denoted “a more free interpretation of what

the professionals of the era understood as modern Mexican style; in turn reflecting their

anxiety to move away from foreign influences and depict the true national spirit.”69 And

with its interior murals by Diego Rivera, William Spratling defined it as “the most Mexican

building made in Mexico since the Conquest.”70

Common to all the works of the transitional period is the notion of simplicity.

Architects creating structures in this manner believed that they too had developed a style

which truly reflected Mexican reality and identity, while fulfilling the needs of their clients.

While ornamentation still existed, it clearly played a secondary role.

Although the variations in architecture [represented changing concepts of national

identity, architectural solutions themselves proposed and employed during Obregón’s

67José Villagrán García, “Ideas Regentes en la Arquitectura Actual,” Arquitectura/México 10,

(December 1954), 195.

68Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años, 87.

69Garay Arellano, 46.

70William Spratling, "Mexican Innovation," Architectural Forum, 21 (November 1931) 13.

25

administration did not present a radical change to the city's contour. The Revolution itself

did not introduce a new architecture. Instead, until the late 1920s, many looked to the past

for inspiration and definition of national identity. It was not until people began to perceive

the Revolution as a means of effecting social change and of entering modern life that a

significant change in architectural styles occurred. In seeking to explain the origins of

modern Mexican architecture, architect Mauricio Gómez Mayorga argued

present Mexican architecture does not spring tellurically from thebursting desire of the cosmic race in its social awakening, as some would liketo have it explained, but it is simply the practical and reasonable result ofthe needs of a country in the process of developing and assimilating adoctrine and a technology already refined in Northern Europe, which madepossible the phenomenon which we call modern architecture throughout theworld, including Mexico.71

Gómez Mayorga explained that after the armed rebellion diminished and the

Revolution extended beyond the overthrow of Díaz and the idea of no-reelection to include

concern for social justice, the nation reached the requisite “cultural and spiritual climate,

propitious for assimilating what European masters were thinking and doing, we were able,

owing to an undeniably active mentality, to make ours the greatest European movement

and to join its current.”72 As Obregón made the federal government the legitimate

authority in socioeconomic matters, he created the basis for widespread government

intervention in the society. In the following years, this intervention frequently took the

form of construction of schools, clinics, housing, among others.

“To Give Form to Our New Civilization”

At the beginning of 1925, two new elements which supported the development of a

new type of architecture in Mexico became prominent. One was the increase in the demand

for construction in both the private and public sectors. The capital needed more schools,

71Mauricio Gómez Mayorga, "La Arquitectura Contemporánea en México," Artes de México,

36, año IX, (1961), 15.

72Gómez Mayorga, Artes, 16.

26

hospitals, housing, office buildings and factories to produce goods for the demands of an ever

increasing population. Given the high costs and limits to functionality of the neo-colonial

style, it appeared that the architectural solution to this problem would be located outside

the realm of this style. It was at this point that the second element, those who believed that

other styles could better represent the identity of revolutionary Mexico and who wanted to

build “in a direct, rational manner, without the dead weight of traditional forms and heavy

ornamentation,”73 found their opportunity.

A small but vocal group of intellectuals, architects and engineers composed this

second element. They wanted to develop an architectural style which provided the

Revolution with the means to achieve its central objective: to modernize the nation. These

individuals recognized that the problems of contemporary Mexico were very different than

those of the colonial era, and certainly dramatically different than those of the pre-conquest

civilizations. Further, the society itself had changed. While its character was certainly

mestizo, modern Mexico was something more than simply the product of the conquest and

miscegenation. Its passage through revolution had changed the nation irrevocably, as

previously marginalized groups began to participate in civil society and government began

to assume more responsibility for socio-economic development and public assistance.

Among the most active of this informal group were former San Carlos classmates

Juan O’Gorman, Alvaro Aburto and Juan Legarreta. These men made the first strident

criticism against the orientation that Mexican architecture had taken. Heeding the view of

professor Guillermo Zárraga, who advised them that “in the real world it was not possible

to apply the architectural precepts of palaces or of the Renaissance: today it is necessary to

make an architecture in accord with the necessities and the means of production of our own

country.” 74 They began to fight against European eclecticism and “the formalism that had

73Katzman, 87.

74Interview with Juan O'Gorman, Lilia Gómez and Miguel Angel Quevedo, TestimoniosVivos, 20 Arquitectos, 129.

27

characterized the last years of the Porfiriato.”75 Judging the value of new Mexican

construction from its incapacity to resolve the social grievances of the Revolution, they

decried its total indifference to the popular movement that had made the Revolution of 1910.

In opposing the neocolonial style, they claimed that it was incongruent with the contents of

the revolutionary programs, and unable to assimilate the new culture that called for

transformations not only of the built environment, but also of the substantive bases of

Mexican society.

Many architects in Mexico perceived that the neocolonial style did not communicate

the contemporary message of Mexican national identity. Instead, they believed it was an

inappropriate exercise which replaced one set of symbols embedded in the exotic eclecticism

of the Díaz era, for another, equally irrelevant to current conditions. Zárraga believed such

works to be abominations, and was grieved “to see how the architects are the most

determined in making that cheap architecture.” Antonio Muñoz G., viewing the latest neo-

colonial works in 1923, found them to be absurd, as those executing such styles “are

insisting in reviving a dead architecture.” José Gómez Echeverría decried the trite rendition

of colonial architecture appearing throughout the capital, as architects “thought they had

given colonial flavor to buildings by splashing the facade with red or placing some blue

tiles.” This architecture carried no meaning; when contemplating it he felt “a vacuum in the

spirit.” Alfonso Pallares offered the harshest criticism of the era, as he stated in 1926,

“there exists no group of Mexican cultural realities which give as a natural and simple

result a Mexican architectural style.”76

These architects witnessed the rejection of traditional styles elsewhere by

movements such as Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and abstract art, and read works by

architects in Europe who were increasingly vocal in condemning “useless styles.” Viennese

75Juan Urquiaga, “La Arquitectura en México: Porfiriato y Movimiento Moderno, 1882-

1950,” México en el Arte, 1 (1983), 44.

76Katzman, 98-99.

28

architect Adolf Loos, who stated that “ornament is a crime,”77 and saw the slightest trace of

ornamentation in a building as proof of criminal tendency on the part of the designer, gave

appealing ideas to Mexicans who, when regarding some of the flagrant architecture of the

Porfirian científicos, may have linked criminal conduct with such ostentatious display. Loos

claimed that "The progress of civilization is synonymous with the stripping of all ornament

from objects of everyday use."78 To Mexicans opposed to ornamentation, this was a welcome

reversal of the Porfirian equating of progress with ornate architecture, and a means for the

nation to rid itself of European domination of Mexican culture.

In place of the neocolonial style, O’Gorman and others proposed the functionalist

[or rationalist, as it was frequently labeled in Mexico] architecture as expressed by Walter

Gropius and Le Corbusier. Its central premise was the notion of form generated by the

specific function of the architectural object. That is, “form does not determine function, but

function determines the form; more precisely, the human behavior with the space is that

which determines the form within the architectural structure.”79 This realization was not

new. As Obregón Santacilia observed,

Functionalism has always existed in good architecture. . .the secret foran architecture to be functional is this simple formula: man-place-time-program. If the results of integrating these components is good, thearchitecture will be functional. But if it is made for man and not for place, ifit not for time nor resolved the problem established, then it is notfunctional.80

Functionalism might have been a simple intellectual exercise were it not for its

inherent social character, its ability as interpreted by its supporters to express new

77Loos' 1898 essay, "Ornament and Crime,” as cited by Wayne Andrews, Architecture,

Ambition and Americans, A Social History of American Architecture, rev. ed., (New York: The FreePress, 1978), 268.

78Wayne Andrews, Architecture, Ambition and Americans, A Social History of AmericanArchitecture, 2d ed., (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 278-79.

79Marisol Aja, "Juan O'Gorman," in Apuntes para la Historia y Crítica de la ArquitecturaMexicana del Siglo XX: 1900-1980, (México, D.F.: Secretaria de Educación Pública, 1981), 9.

80Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años, 79.

29

nationalism and its value to those who perceived the Revolution as providing an access to

modernity. The recognition of societal and technological changes due to the industrial

revolution inherent in functionalism was significant; yet it was when this recognition was

fused to the heightened social awareness and sense of moral imperative of the post-World

War I era, that a new architecture became possible. Thus architecture gained a sense of

social mission, and the movement gained momentum and strength. Socialism, which

defined the ideological climate of the early 1900s, as architectural historian John Peter

claimed,

was not just a background to modern architecture; it was a criticalmaturing force. The desire among architects to make life better for peoplewas genuine and compelling -- so compelling that it inspired a missionaryzeal, with accompanying sense of rectitude. Architecture developed a newmorality.81

Functionalism involved a new conception of building, which corresponded to the new

technology of the age, and was based on local realities and freed from borrowed styles of

antiquity. Structures were to be built of monotone, subdued color, comprised of geometric

shapes and plain surfaces. The simpler the lines and form, the better they could symbolize

the modern machine era. “Dishonest” components must be replaced, among them thick

masonry and false fronts, pediments, lintels, ornate entablatures and capitals. Such

ornamentation, if not the crime that Loos claimed it to be, masked the true social and

physical reality of the building, and more significantly, the true social and physical reality

of the society which built it. Instead, architects employed steel and concrete or iron

skeletons to support their buildings; with walls relieved of their load-bearing

responsibilities, they could be thin skins of glass or stucco, and windows could be placed at

will, thus creating structures which allowed more natural light and ventilation.

As expressed by Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus, functionalist proclamations and

exhortations found a wide audience in Mexico, which faced the challenge of recovery from

81John Peter, The Oral History of Modern Architecture, Interviews with the Greatest

Architects of the Twentieth Century, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), 44-45.

30

the devastation of war. The proclamations held the promise of reconstruction, and served

as a symbol for a new faith stronger than that existing in the profession before: the

affirmation that good design could change societies for the better. Mexican architects who

believed that the problems of the nation were social and the answers to these problems

structural found much in the writings of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier to apply in

Mexico City. In proclaiming architecture to be “one of the most urgent needs of man,” Le

Corbusier provided his Mexican audiences with an appealing message.82 Even if architects

and planners did not agree with his recommended modes of building, they could be

motivated by these words. And in his rejection of styles, with strong statements such as “the

styles of Louis XIV, XV, XVI or Gothic are to architecture what a feather is to a woman’s

head; it is sometimes pretty, though not always, and never more,”83 Le Corbusier provided

those in Mexico who were already seeking simplicity in their work with additional support

for their stance. With his counsel to design in accord with the “true and profound laws of

architecture which are established on mass, rhythm and proportion,” and not in terms of

“parasitic” styles,84 Le Corbusier liberated Mexican architects from past facile copying of

French or other styles, a freedom which would allow them to assert a Mexican identity in

architecture.

O'Gorman, Aburto and Legarreta enthusiastically adopted Le Corbusier's credo of

"the house as machine for living" and became vocal opponents of the prevailing design in

Mexico, which in their assessment did not resolve spatial problems or make use of the

advantages of new materials such as reinforced concrete, nor did it constitute a reflection of

social changes. Neocolonial buildings such as the immense house on the corner of

Insurgentes and Coahuila by Francisco Martínez Negrete and Agustín de la Barra (1924) ,

82Charles Edouard Jeanneret Gris (Le Corbusier), Towards a New Architecture, trans.

Frederick Etchells, (New York: Praeger, 1970), 13.

83Le Corbusier, 25.

84Le Corbusier, 286.

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Manuel Ortiz Monasterio's house at Reforma 234 (1922) and Rafael Goyenexhe's Hotel

Majestic (1925) represented the persistence of archaic, wasteful, irrelevant design. Instead

of such pursuits, the three architects wanted to focus the architectural community's

attention on the resolution of grave social problems, as they perceived that these problems

had provoked the Revolution. A failure to act would deny Mexicans the access to modernity

that the Revolution promised, moreover, as Le Corbusier had cautioned in his conclusion, it

could lead once more to revolution.85 Their dedication to the construction of hospitals,

schools and popular housing throughout the 1930s arose from this conviction, as well as

their advocacy of professional teaching and technical preparation to reflect this new

agenda.86 At this time, their faith in technology and progress was absolute. Solutions

inevitably followed correct statements of problems, regardless of scale, ranging from the

problem of the house to the problem of the city, to the problems of the nation.

Could architecture truly include all those who had been excluded from full social,

economic and political participation for centuries? Could better, more inclusive design

rectify long-standing social inequities? Functionalism encompassed overly sweeping,

untested assertions of faith in progress, in technology, standardization and the machine and

an interpretation of function in terms not only of structure but of performance. Derived

from the machine, this interpretation of function was a restricted one. As Federico Sánchez

Fogarty pointed out, “As a definition, the ‘house as machine’ was quite deficient, but it did

possess valuable precipitating qualities against that excessive sentimentality toward past

architecture that had practically destroyed every incentive among architects to do any truly

creative work.”87 To Juan O’Gorman, functionalism promised the possibility “of producing .

85Le Corbusier believed that “we are dealing with an urgent problem of our epoch, nay more,

with the problem of our epoch. The balance of society comes down to a question of building. Weconclude with these justifiable alternatives: Architecture or Revolution.” Le Corbusier, 265.

86Jorge Medellín, “Arquitectura” in Pablo González Casanova, ed., México, Cinquenta Añosde Revolución, IV: La Cultura, (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1962), 295.

87Federico Sánchez Fogarty “Architect as Contractor in Mexico,” in Esther Born, ed., TheNew Architecture in Mexico, (New York: The Architectural Record, 1937), 13.

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. . a new architecture, of our own time and without having to resort to the anachronistic.”88

And to individuals involved in the reconstruction of society and government in accord with

revolutionary ideals, the sweeping claims by Gropius and Le Corbusier which assured moral

health and better societies for all through the imposition of mass-produced functional

buildings seemed heroic.

Functionalism quickly proved practical in nations such as Mexico where

functionalist construction proved to be dramatically less expensive. Throughout the 1930s,

governments and the private sector built schools, housing, factories, office buildings and

other facilities quickly and on limited budgets. But perhaps just as significant was the hope

implied in functionalist theory. Its powerful, creative declarations of architecture's practical

aspects appealed to idealistic young Mexican architects such as O’Gorman, Aburto and

Legarreta, Del Moral, and later Yáñez and de la Mora, who saw the continued suffering

and injustice in the capital and wanted to ameliorate the conditions of poverty and misery

“at minimal cost and with maximum efficiency.”89 They believed that the new European

architecture provided “the formalization of revolutionary ideals with which to construct a

new society.”90

The application of functionalism met with considerable resistance from several

quarters, among them the so-called "momios" of the Mexican architectural profession,

several of whom believed functionalism to be imposed on Mexico by imperialist interests

working through the Tolteca cement company and its hyperkinetic spokesman, Federico

Sánchez Fogarty. In their insistence on an architecture that would express the national

spirit, the conservatives continued to execute what architectural historian Irving Myers

88Juan O'Gorman, “Notas sobre Arquitectura,” Archivo de la Academia de Artes.

89Ibid.

90Antonio Toca, “El Ornamento No Es un Crimen,” México en el Arte, 6 (Fall 1984), 46.

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described as “as decadent Colonialism, sometimes introducing Aztec or Mayan decorative

elements, as if these echoes of the past could express the spirit of Modern Mexico.”91

Conservatives also found fault with functionalism’s emphasis on internationalism,

as well as its consideration of localism as regressive. Functionalist houses, they claimed,

such as O’Gorman’s house and studio for Diego Rivera in San Angel, could have been built

anywhere in the world. If form was based on function, they wondered, why couldn’t

structures reflect local differences in how a building had to function with relation to climate,

social conditions, and materials? Moreover, detractors argued, this emphasis on universal

application distracted from its potential usefulness as a carrier of a unique Mexican

identity.

Functionalism experienced permutations, as architects and planners adapted it to

meet Mexican needs. In later decades, even its strongest proponents in Mexico came to

reject its most strident theoretical assumptions, while they continued to employ and refine

architectural construction along modern lines.92 And as Kostof pointed out, architecture

alone "does not bring about social change. Instead, powerful political, economic and social

forces do that, and without a concurrence of those forces the architect is helpless to affect

society.”93 But for a time, the functionalist architects tried, and these works invoked in them

a sense of mission. As Mexican architect Vladimir Kaspe observed from Le Corbusier, “To

furnish the country with that which is necessary and sufficient. Opportune, urgent theme,

whose immediate solution is indispensable.”94

91Irving E. Myers (in cooperation with the National Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico),

Mexico’s Modern Architecture, (New York: Architectural Book Company, 1952), 46-47.

92For example, as architect Enrique Yáñez observed in the early 1950s, ". . . Functionalism as adoctrine was incongruous with the actual state of affairs. It was incapable of meeting the desires of those whopaid for private construction, who often wanted something warmer than the cold logic of the radicalarchitects." Yáñez, “Forward,” in Myers, 12.

93Kostof, History of Architecture, 745.

94Vladimir Kaspe, “Tiempos de Estudiante con Mario Pani,” Arquitectura/México, XV(September 1959), 152.

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Functionalism also gained strength due to the vigorous promotion activities by

Mexican cement companies. The use of cement and concrete was not due to functionalism;

in the early 1920s factories in Mexico City and Monterrey were already producing ashlar,

concrete columns of all sizes and styles, as well as I-beams and other structural innovations.

Juan Galindo y Pimental, one of the editors of Excélsior’s architecture section, noted in 1924

that reinforced concrete “can be understood to carry a seal definitely ours, using as the

source our traditional architecture.”95

In the latter years of the decade, the cement industry pursued an aggressive

strategy to increase the demand for its products. One company in particular, the Cementos

Tolteca S.A., published the trade journal Cemento; with its monthly circulation of 12,000

copies delivered throughout the nation the company provided the means for non-specialists

as well as those in the building trades to become familiar with its products. In this journal

the company promoted the use of reinforced concrete through articles and photographs of

notable buildings in the United States and Europe, and explanations of concrete’s utility in

pipes, paving, lampposts, among other uses. Publicity director Federico Sánchez Fogarty, as

his readers learned, believed “Concrete is forever” and “Concrete is the letter, the verb of

contemporary architecture.” Architects took note of the new design possibilities available to

them from this product, said to be “el polvo mágico.”96 Tolteca also sponsored design

competitions, with prizes awarded to projects featuring the best commercial and residential

uses of its product, as well as artistic competitions which awarded prizes for the best

representation of the Company’s works. Even children were not spared: at the Estación

del Ferrocarril Infantil in Chapultepec, a placard read “this station will last many centuries

95 Juan Galindo y Pimental, “En México aún no se han Abordado los Problemas

Constructivas con Espíritu Moderno,” Excélsior, October 19, 1924.

96 In this article Sánchez Fogarty placed concrete at the top of modern discoveries, “equivalent in itsfield to that of the automobile, the railroad, and the airplane together in that of communications.” FedericoSánchez Fogarty, “El Polvo Mágico,” Cemento, 21, (January 1928), 17.

35

because the concrete is made with cement. When you are big, you will make your palaces of

concrete.”97

In sum, this campaign exerted a significant influence upon Mexican designers,98

particularly due to the legitimization that it gave to functionalism as a synonym of progress

and modernity, in addition to its advocacy of the full acceptance of cement understood under

the commercial intention of the producers: the only possibility for the creation of modern

architecture. And Mexican architects began to incorporate cement in increasing numbers of

buildings and to perceive concrete to be the panacea of revolutionary Mexico, “providing the

backbone of all its visions . . . to be and to act as architecture.”99

Certain architects quickly perceived the plastic virtues of cement, particularly its

malleability, potential to be a true spatial innovation, and utility as a substitute for masonry

and brick. One of the most significant works was that of José Villagrán García’s Instituto de

Higiene and Granja Sanitaria in Popotla, D.F. In his work with Vasconcelos at the

Departamento de Conservación de Escuelas of the Secretaría de Educación Pública after his

graduation in 1923, he had the opportunity to meet Diego Rivera and José Clemente

Orozco. Of this period he recalled,

I began to feel the obligation that architects and future architects mustpromote work similar to that of the Renaissance: that is to say, as those ofthe Renaissance began to work in other lines of conduct, departing preciselyfrom that which existed and had been behind what they did -- creatinganew! - . . . producing work which pertained authentically to its time, thus I

97As cited by Katzman, 109.

98Architect Mauricio Gómez Mayorga described the influence of Cemento’s successor Toltecaupon his own early career in an interview in 1980. He recalled of his education in the early 1930s, ". .. I discovered in the library of the school some Italian magazines, then modern, with futuristarchitecture, Italian futurist and functionalist. It was for me a true impact and in that moment Idiscovered that there were other distinct things and that the classic-romantic questions of the schoolnow did not have any validity and that Europe had made something completely different and thatwas very interesting. The Italian magazines and the famous Tolteca magazine. . . opened my eyes towhat was a new world that was not a world of classic order of the watercolors and bare drawings andclay models, that there were other things and that was the way I went, naturally." Interview withMauricio Gómez Mayorga, Lilia Gómez and Miguel Angel Quevedo, Testimonios Vivos, 20Arquitectos, 142.

99Enrique X. De Anda Alanís, Evolución de la Arquitectura en México: Epocas Prehispanica,Virreinal, Moderna y Contemporánea, (México, D.F.: Panorama Editorial, 1987), 51.

36

considered that we had to do the same --in Mexico! But under conditions ofthe economy and idiosyncrasy of all of that is Mexican.100

Villagrán García did not set out to copy Le Corbusier.101 From this belief in the

need "to produce authentically for the time" he set out on his first work, the Instituto de

Higiene and Granja Sanitaria in Popotla [begun in 1925, completed in 1926] which was

influenced by articles on the new European architecture in articles appearing in the

Sunday Excelsior.102 The Instituto consisted of a series of eight simply conceived pavilions,

the majority of one floor, with a minimum of ornamentation. O'Gorman, del Moral, Campos,

Arce and Vergara worked with Villagrán García on this project, which formed an integral

part of the structural revolution in Mexican architecture. As described by architectural

historian Ramón Vargas Salguero, this work represented

the movement of an architecture restricted to the satisfaction of thenecessities of the land-owning oligarchy to an architecture for the spatialrequirements of the working class. . . 103

This structure served pragmatic as well as symbolic functions. It was a sign of the

Calles government efforts to ameliorate serious public health problems. Further, as

Villagrán García’s colleague Enrique del Moral interpreted, the Instituto was “the first

example of the modern spirit constructed in the country, and therefore of a fundamental

importance.”104

100Interview with José Villagrán García, in Lilia Gómez and Miguel Angel Quevedo,

Testimonios Vivos, 20 Arquitectos, 63.

101Ricardo Robina, “Arquitectura" in Pablo González Casanova, ed., México, Cinquenta Añosde Revolución, IV: La Cultura, (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1962), 302.

102Interview with José Villagrán García, in Lilia Gómez and Miguel Angel Quevedo,Testimonios Vivos, 20 Arquitectos, 63.

103Ramón Vargas Salguera, “José Villagrán” in José Villagrán García, (México, D.F.:Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1986), Documentos para la Historia de la Arquitectura en México,n. 2, 255.

104Enrique del Moral, "Villagrán García y la Evolución de Nuestra Arquitectura,"Arquitectura/México XII, number 55, September 1956, 131-132.

37

Juan O'Gorman also made extensive use of reinforced concrete in his new designs;

the houses which he built in San Angel for his father [at Palmas 81] for himself [at Jardín

88] and for Diego Rivera [at Altavista 81] in 1929 were the most notable of his early efforts

in residential construction. Rivera’s house attracted the most attention of the three, in part

due to the artist’s own promotion of the uniqueness of his home, the first purely functional

house in Mexico. O’Gorman’s houses were unconventional structures, “directly and

obviously derived from Le Corbusier, although the planar surfaces were sometimes relieved

by cantilever projections and exterior spiral stairways, and the glass area offset by planes of

blue, red, yellow or brown.”105 O’Gorman built these homes with scant concern for the

opposition voiced in conservative circles, who looked with scorn at the garish colors which

he applied to exteriors, and considered his lack of ornamentation as artistic poverty and not

“as a sign of spiritual strength and maturity.”106

Cement and reinforced concrete also made other types of construction possible, most

notably the high-rise or skyscraper, a symbol of progress and modernity. These materials

lend the possibility of “verticalizing” construction in the city for the first time. This process

had begun with the construction of Albert Pepper’s six-story Edificio Woodrow in 1922, and

Juan Segura’s eight-story, Edificio Ermita-Hipódromo in 1930. Perhaps fearing the

imposition of skyscrapers built with inappropriate elements, Sánchez Fogarty stated,

there is nothing in a skyscraper to be ashamed of, and there is much inthese buildings demanding new architectural expression. A modern buildingis skeletal in structure and, as a rule, asymmetrical in function, andsomehow or other architecture must find expression for both of thesecharacteristics. A modern building is made of steel, concrete, and glass, andnew materials have always called for new treatments. A modern building isno longer a semi-dead mass of stone and mortar; it is a quasi-organicstructure throbbing with the life of charged wires, conditioned air, andrunning water. Skyscrapers are the outcome of a mechanized system ofproduction. Roman pillars cannot withstand, still less symbolize, the conflictof forces in our dynamic buildings. Gothic finials cannot crown then and

105Clive Bamford Smith, Builders in the Sun, Five Mexican Architects, (New York:

Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1967), 18.

106Max Cetto, Modern Architecture in Mexico, trans. D.Q. Stephenson, (New York: Praeger,1961), 24.

38

leave any hint to future generations of the soul that animated the giantbuilders of our time.107

Nor could the spirit of the 'twenties or 'thirties be adequately represented or

supported by Roman pillars or Gothic finials. The nation required this new type of building,

built in functionalist style, wrought of new materials. The potential value of the skyscraper

to convey the message of revolutionary vigor, achievement and promise was apparent to

Sánchez Fogarty. However, Mexico was not able to build these structures at once.

Achievements in the construction of tall buildings were limited in the 1920s; in 1930 the

tallest building was only eight stories. It was not until 1934 that engineers began to solve

the problem of constructing high-rise buildings upon Mexico City’s sponge-like subsoil. Nor

were urban land prices sufficiently high to make such constructions cost effective.

“The Paradise of the Potentates”

Expressions of the new nationalism via the neo-colonial and functionalist styles do

not explain all of what was transpiring in Mexico City. As the nation recovered from a

decade of war, the capital also manifested a disparity in standards of living between the

upper and “popular” classes which resembled that of the Porfiriato.

Chronicler of Mexico City Salvador Novo found the city had experienced "violent and

growing transformations" throughout the 1920s. He saw that

the provinces invaded it, more than the provinces, the active north, fromwhere, (like the Aztecs in their time), the generals arrived to govern:Obregón and Calles. It was the years of the bungalow and of the shape of the‘Colonial California’ style, propagated towards the sudden growth that thecity gave toward the west with the first demolition of Porfirian palaces of theReforma, with the creation of their substitutes in Colonia Cuauhtémoc, withthe transformation of the old Condesa Racetrack in Colonia Condesa, andwith the sale of Chapultepec Heights, that an ashamed nationalismtranslated to Lomas.108

107Federico Sánchez Fogarty, “Architect as Contractor in Mexico,” in Esther Born, ed. The

New Architecture in Mexico, (New York: The Architectural Record, and William Morrow & Company,1937), 13.

108Salvador Novo, “Imagenes de México,” 7.

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By the end of Calles’ term, those who had enjoyed the favor of the government under

Obregón and Calles and thus developed into a wealthy class bought properties which

communicated their new-found status through residential segregation and design. Some

settled in Colonia Juárez, where the Porfirian aristocracy had built their residences,

preferring European models, particularly the Mansard, with streets after European cities or

non-nationalist generals such as Prim. At the beginning of 1923, other former

revolutionaries moved to Chapultepec Heights, or Lomas de Chapultepec, which earned the

name “paradise of the potentates,” from its new population composed of diplomats, highly-

placed bureaucrats and the old aristocrats.109 This apparently counter-revolutionary social

stratification continued throughout the 1920s. Verna Millan, searching for accommodations

in Mexico City in the mid 1920s, described Chapultepec Heights as “overlooking the city like

a miniature stage set.” Here, she found

Abelardo Rodríguez, Luis L. Leon and other notables of the Callesregime had built themselves extraordinary villas in that scalloped, candy-box type of architecture, all pink and fretted and covered with whatnots,that Hollywood bequeathed to the world and to the newly rich. . . 110

The propensity of the newly-rich to build extraordinary homes modeled after

medieval castles, gothic cathedrals or English country houses, all with lavish appointments,

occasioned considerable alarm in some circles as early as 1923. An editorial in the first

issue of El Arquitecto stated,

thousands of houses have emerged, but where is the Mexican house, thehouse by Mexicans for Mexicans? All of the styles have been imitated, thepatio has been killed, substituting it for the hall, the dimensions of therooms have been reduced to the minimum possible, the flowerpots have beeneliminated, substituted for caricatures of gardens. In a word, a major efforthas been made to abdicate what is ours; in our history, if in politics it was atradition to offer the throne to Maximilian of Austria, in our cultural andartistic history the movement for the American-type house also constitutes a

109Jorge Prieto Laurens noted wryly upon his return from exile that former revolutionaries

were now “owners of castles in Lomas de Chapultepec.” Prieto Laurens, Cincuenta Años de PolíticaMexicana, Memorias Políticas, (México, D.F.: Editoria Mexicana de Periódicos, Libros y Revistas,1968), 158.

110Millan, 12.

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betrayal to our ground, our sky, our flowers, our social possibilities, our mostpeculiar idiosyncrasies.111

The style subject to the most heated criticism, however, was what contemporaries

somewhat pejoratively labeled the California-colonial or Hollywood style. Arturo Sotomayor

found little to commend about it, viewing its as “a species of excema on the urban skin of the

city.”112 Vázquez Mellado was harsher still, labeling them “enormous antifunctional,

uncomfortable, antiesthetic and anti-everything houses” in which “those who made them

would perceive themselves to be as Louis XIV was in Versailles.”113 Mauricio Gómez

Mayorga, at that time an architecture student, noted with exasperation that this style

spread between 1926 and 1930 “like a cancer all around the Hipódromo suburbs.” Mexico,

he thought, could have turned its attention to the new European architecture; instead, it

embraced “the amusing sophistication of a colonial style invented by the vulgar and

uncultured prosperity of Hollywood.”114 Obregón Santacilia offered the following scathing

attack on this style,

it is the most hybrid and disgraceful style that has been used in Mexico;it proceeds from the Mexican architecture of the hacienda and pueblo homes,it went to the South of the United States, and it was smartened up inCalifornia. . . there mixed with Italian and Spanish styles for whosefabrication existed large workshops in which are made casts of Salamancankeystones with fawns' heads, niches, remates of all sizes, more or lessoverloaded according to the piece and with all the vivid compositions weremade in San Diego and Santa Monica; from there it returned to Mexico andthe Latinos dedicated themselves to copying it. . . from magazines instead ofmaking a trip to the Mexican pueblos and identifying with the real thing.115

111El Arquitecto, 1 (1923), 5.

112Sotomayor, 297.

113Vázquez Mellado, 299

114Mauricio Gómez Mayorga, “La Arquitectura Contemporánea en México,” Artes de México,36, año IX, 1961, 15.

115Obregón Santacilia, Cinquenta Años, 76.

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In brief, these development announced the emergence of a new capitalist class,116

whose actions would alter expressions of national identity. The styles in which they chose

to build and thus leave their mark on the built environment had none of the historical links

of the neo-colonial, nor the notion that the Revolution provided the nation with the

opportunity to look back into its past for a true national essence. Their choices did not

reflect the concern for social justice or desire for sincerity and honesty in construction

inherent in Mexican functionalism, nor its perception that the Revolution had provided the

nation with an access to modernity. Instead, what was happening in Lomas de Chapultepec

and other settlements of the newly rich seemed to mirror the process of personal enrichment

so prevalent during the Porfiriato. Further, the popularity of the California-colonial home

indicated that the upper class was consuming another imported product, indicative of its

propensity to identify with foreign tastes and identities.

Another Invasion from the North

The construction of a national identity in the aftermath of revolution is not an easy

task. The former consensus had been forcibly removed, and a new tacit agreement as to

how the new nationalism should be constituted had not yet been achieved. The Mexico of

the 1920s was no longer the same society which had celebrated the centennial of its

independence with elaborate banquets, with foreign dignitaries toasting Porfirian order,

peace and progress with Cordon Rouge champagne and Martell cognac by the hundreds of

cases.117 Yet a new identity was slow to form. As seen in this essay, efforts to construct a

new identity which would give meaning to the Revolution involved explorations into the

nation’s past and the retrieval of fragments of culture thought to represent a true Mexican

identity, untouched by foreign penetration. It also involved inquiry into what sort of

116Lesley B. Simpson, Many Mexicos, rev. ed., (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1966), 316.

117Artemio del Valle Arizpe, Calle Vieja y Calle Nueva, (México, D.F.: Editorial Jus, 1949),298.

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modern life the nation wanted to have, given the access to modernity which the Revolution

provided.-

Underlying these searches was the notion that national identity would be forged as

the nation rejected the foreign domination of its culture -- as it no longer wanted or felt the

need to emulate other cultures, nor had them imposed upon it. However, Mexican history

indicates that the boundaries of national identity have always been permeable. Throughout

its history, as a colony of Spain and as a politically independent nation, it had been the

object of foreign penetration The styles employed to represent national identity were, in

past centuries, cultural imports. Political nationalism emanating from the Revolution

assumed “that all contacts with Europe inevitably led to alien and, therefore, inauthentic

expressions.”118 But in the modern era it was not possible to enforce the sort of isolation

which would allow the formation of a purely indigenous cultural expression.

And by the end of the decade, it was getting progressively harder to do so,

particularly as the Calles government pursued policies to welcome capital and foreign

investment into Mexico, if it were “inspired in morality”; that is, if foreign investors could be

humanitarian and act with Mexican law.119 In this regard the nation began to experience

the cultural penetration of the United States, a companion of imported capital and the

beginning of a process which would increasingly alter the appearance and content of Mexico

City in following years. In these “Roaring Twenties” which Ramón Eduardo Ruiz

summarized as a period in which "the newly rich aped the dress and lifestyles of Hollywood

stars," Mexico's traditional isolation was collapsing. By the late 1920s tourists “made their

appearance, lured by low prices and exotic scenes. . . . The Yankee cultural invasion had

started. . . . “120 And if one overlooked the burgeoning slums and vecindades, one saw, as

118Francisco Bullrich, New Directions in Latin American Architecture, (New York: George

Braziller, 1969), 18.

119El Democrata, May 14, 1924.

120Ramón Eduardo Ruiz, Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, (NewYork: W.W. Norton and Company, 1992), 382-383.

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contemporary observer Anita Brenner recalled, “the capital took on the Coolidge-era

outlook. Factories were being started and growing, stores installed big plate glass windows,

electric advertising signs flashed up, American trade names became as well known as the

names of movie stars.”121 One could watch Greta Garbo at the Cine “ Iris,” dance the

Charleston, or listen to the Symphony of Mexico playing European classical works.

Consumption patterns also changed to reflect the North American presence: on

“Redeemer's Row” the upper class fondness for big automobiles such as Packard, Essex or

Hudson contributed to further changes in Mexico City. Parking lots and garages were built,

streets were extended and widened to accommodate more automobile traffic; auto

dealerships and filling stations appeared on the urban landscape, in uneasy proximity to

colonial era structures. Calles summed up the situation neatly: “The Mexican Revolution. .

. like all revolutions, has had its destructive phase. But the State has successfully

eliminated those elements of conflict and Calles announced, "the Revolution has entered its

constructive phase.”122 And in this “constructive phase,” the search for an authentic

Mexican style continued, amid greater cultural penetration by the “Colossus of the North.”

121Anita Brenner, The Wind That Swept Mexico, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973),

80.

122Plutarco Elías Calles. Pensamiento Político y Social, Antología (1913-1936), with prologueand notes by Carlos Macías, (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982), ix.